


In Shades of Grey and Candle Light

by InesStarkDowney



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Jealous Steve Rogers, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Oblivious Tony Stark, Pining Steve Rogers, Slash, Steve's first dance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 20:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13279068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InesStarkDowney/pseuds/InesStarkDowney
Summary: Every year, on the 15th of September, The September Foundation Gala was held and that year Steve attended it but only because he couldn't say no to Tony. Yet, all Steve did was drink in hopes to, somehow, get drunk and forget the sight in front of him: Tony dancing with a beautiful girl and not him.So he drank and drank without succeeding, till Tony was next to him and, like before, Steve couldn't say no to whatever Tony asked of him. That's why he was suddenly in the middle of dancing couples with Tony's hand in his and, dear Lord, loving Tony Stark couldn't be more obvious.Except for Tony, of course.





	In Shades of Grey and Candle Light

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year! 
> 
> Sorry if there are any mistakes... as usual.

Every year, on the 15th of September, The September Foundation Gala was held. That year it was at The Glass Houses, more precisely Glasshouses 21 that had a breath-taking view of the Hudson River and New York. Every year newspapers and magazines covered that night, mentioning all the glamour to the women Tony Stark laid a single finger on for a mere second. Steve guessed that what actually mattered, all the money they gathered for those in need, was overlooked. Why would the world care about doing good?

And with that Steve wondered why he had given in to Tony’s request of coming together with the rest of the team. Steve knew why too well (it was those eyes, Steve could never resist those brown eyes) and still he wondered, rather angrily, as he stood by the bar, with a drink that had no effect on him whatsoever, and observed all of the most important and influential people from all over the country mingle, dance and drink.

Steve took a sip of his drink (Old Fashioned it was called) and watched as Thor boasted about some war he won back in the days, with Loki by his side, eyes rolling at any detail that seemed too good to be true. But still, a small smile shadowed his lips, at perhaps the fond memories or just the pride over his older brother.

Sam and Bucky tried to mingle with the pretty girls in very tight dresses that giggled at whatever they said. Yet Steve knew somewhat that all they did was fight and try to come off as the best, just to tease each other. That almost put a smile on Steve’s face, his heart squeezing with fondness.

Natasha worked through the room, her arm interlocked with Clint’s, a glass of champagne in her hand as she occasionally took a sip and murmured something into Clint’s ear that made him smile rather wickedly.

Bruce was hanging around with a very elegant woman that Steve could only assume to be an expert in whatever field she worked in. In fact, she seemed to have pulled Bruce into a very enthusiastic conversation where Bruce contributed to more than Steve had ever seen before outside of a team environment.

Vision and Wanda in each other’s arms danced in the middle of quite a lot of couples. They slowly swayed to the jazz singer’s voice, Wanda talking excitedly, but Vision was so obviously enthralled by her, that all he could do was smile sweetly at her. It was clear from Steve’s perspective, how much in love he was. In fact, all of the room seemed to notice it, as well.

Then, not much further away, swaying to the jazz, too, holding a girl in a red dress closely to him, was Tony.

That’s where Steve’s eyes locked. Suddenly, the rest of the people hardly mattered and Steve had to drink a little more, his throat dry. Dressed in a tight fitted tux, almost too classic for someone like Tony, a futurist (the future, in Steve’s mind), Tony looked beautiful, breathtaking, everything. Steve sighed. If only he focused on the fit of the tuck around Tony’s body, on his perfectly trimmed beard and the little curls on the back of his head. If only he could focus on that, then maybe the girl in Tony’s arms wouldn’t matter and she’d disappear. But it wasn’t that easy and the dry throat syndrome quickly turned into a tight grip around his heart affliction.

Quickly, Steve dunked all of the bitter tasted alcohol down his throat, hopeful that the burning sensation would overcome the ache that continued to spread over his chest. Steve could hope but jealousy just soaked in the alcohol and grew bigger and worse.

Steve was pathetic and yet, in misery, he continued to stare at the couple on the dance floor. Observing the hold of Tony around the girl’s waist, Steve could imagine the same hold on his waist. Observing Tony’s lips hovering over her ear, Steve could imagine those same lips whispering to him. Observing the non-existential space between their bodies, Steve could imagine Tony that close to him, too.

“Another one, please”, Steve asked the bartender for another Old Fashioned, and, yes, he was pathetic. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t get drunk and forget all of this.

This, this, this was what being completely in love with Tony Stark was like, at least when Tony didn’t feel the same. He was sure. So pain and embarrassment and a rotting jealousy consumed who didn’t live in ecstasy by Tony’s side.

Steve smiled quickly at the bartender, thanking him for the drink before returning to Tony and his beauty, all of that impossible Steve couldn’t grasp, just to find Tony staring at him from over the girl’s shoulder. Feeling like he got caught looking through the keyhole, a blush crept over his body and settled on his cheeks. Steve drank to hide the embarrassment, but Tony didn’t know anything. While Steve stared, Tony paid his full attention to the girl in his arms. While Steve thought of himself in Tony’s arms, Tony was not in his mind. While Steve wished, right then, that Tony somehow knew, Tony winked at him before returning to whispering to the girl, completely foreign to Steve’s feelings. The blush disappeared off of Steve’s skin and all he could feel was the alcohol pooling at the bottom of his stomach. It didn’t settle well.

It had to stop. Steve had to stop. So he turned his back on Tony and tried to drink in peace. This was so much better. The knowledge was burning in the back of his mind and the image printed behind his eyelids, but it wasn’t much of a tight grip around his heart anymore.

Actually, the second someone slotted in next to Steve and he looked to see Tony, the grip was entirely lost and all that he saw was Tony and Tony alone, no more girl in a red dress. 

“Why are you drinking alone, Cap?”

“Why are you here instead of dancing with the girl in the red dress?” And why did Steve need to know this? He didn’t, but he wanted a reason, maybe a reason including him.

Tony smiled slightly, but the smile, Steve noticed, didn’t reach his eyes. A lot of Tony’s smiles didn’t reach his eyes that evening. They were fake and forced. The ones he wore in front of the press. The ones he used to wear years ago, when he hid as much as possible from everyone, from the Avengers, from Steve.

“She’s gorgeous, yes, but I don’t think she’s the person I’d like to dance with for the rest of the night.”

Steve nodded. Satisfaction crawled all over his skin. He was warm all over the place and Steve hated it. But shame hardly overcame that happiness that settled inside of him. Even a tiny voice inside his head dared to whisper: _Maybe he wants to dance with you all night long._ However, Steve shook it off as usual.

“Why aren’t you dancing, though? I’ve seen all of this room look at you from head to toe wishing to dance with you just to be close to you, just to touch you.”, Tony said so nonchalantly, looking at everyone but Steve and still leaving Steve weak in the knees at the thought that maybe Tony could have been looking at him like that too. That while dancing with someone else, with Steve distracted enough, Tony looked at him with that much want, too. “So… why?”

“Uh… I never danced in my life before.” It was all true, but hardly the whole truth and Steve knew too well before saying it. Still, Steve felt embarrassed about it looking down at his shoes.

“Never?! Wow, okay. Bucky was telling the truth when he said you didn’t dance at all.”

Steve snapped his head back up, staring widely at Tony. “Bucky?” Steve’s attention was 100% on Tony and whatever he and Bucky had been talking about him, specially what Bucky might have let out. He knew too much and was enough of a jerk to mention how Steve was in love with Tony, even if in a very low-key way. All of Steve’s body, in fact, turned to Tony. The drink he had in his hand was long forgotten. Drinking would not help with Tony possibly knowing how Steve felt.

“Yeah.”

“You’ve been talking about me?”

“Well, we’ve got something in common and that’s you.”

“So you talk about me…”

“Don’t worry, Cap. He doesn’t tell me many embarrassing stories about you.”, Tony laughed and Steve couldn’t help but smile at the sight of that despite the nervousness he had at the moment. He could almost swear he was sweating through his tux – cold sweat dripping down his back. “But he told me how you’ve never danced. Not back then, in the war, much less now. He thinks, though, that you’d dance with me. Which is obvious.”

“Obvious?”

Yes, sweat, very cold sweat was dripping down his back and suddenly there was no floor underneath his feet. Obvious. It was obvious Steve loved Tony so much that if there was someone after Peggy (the right partner once, his best girl, forever and always) Steve would dance with, it would be Tony. Tony knew. He knew and now he’d end whatever hopes Steve had.

“Of course! Everyone knows I’m the greatest dancer in the team. Don’t tell Nat I said this, though. She might end me with her powerful thighs.”

Saying relief washed over Steve was an understatement. Steve was so relieved he laughed.

Tony smiled at him and that exact smile, the smile that only came up when Steve laughed at Tony’s remarks, settled everything inside him. All those crazy red feelings that sped up through Steve’s bloodstream were just there: inside him, a secret yet to be spilled.

“I won’t tell her, don’t worry, Tony.”

“Great”, Tony beamed “Now, let’s go.”

Standing in front of Steve, Tony extended his hand, still with a hint of a smile in the corners of his mouth. Steve didn’t move.

“What?”

“Come on. Let’s go dancing. It’s time you learn a thing or two with me, Rogers.”

 _I’m always learning with you, Tony_ was what Steve thought, but he didn’t say it. He just looked at Tony’s hand, wondering if he really could do this: Dance with Tony, like he was the right partner. Taking Tony’s hand Steve answered himself and was led to the middle of the couples. Bucky and Nat were dancing together when they peered over at Steve and both raised their eyebrows. All Steve did was blush while his friends proceeded to smile wickedly. They knew, of course they knew. But Tony didn’t and holding hands with Steve didn’t mean anything to him while Steve observed intently their fingers intertwined. A series of scenarios with their fingers intertwined rushed through his mind and there they were again, his weak knees.

“Ready?” Steve nodded. “Do as I say. Keep your right hand in mine, your left on my back and, come on, Rogers, get in here.”

Tony pulled Steve against him. They weren’t flushed together, but being this close to Tony was rare and Steve was intoxicated. He could smell his perfume, his lavender body wash and shampoo. Steve couldn’t get any creepier, could he? Sighing, Steve decided to get himself together.

“Just follow my lead.”

Tony told him what to do: two steps back, two steps forward, twirl and do it all over again. He looked down with a smile, making sure Steve took the right steps, but not once did Steve look down. His eyes were glued to Tony’s face: his smile, small but definitely there and full of amusement; his eyes, wrinkled at the corners from happiness. Happiness. Tony was happy dancing with him.

Then Tony gazed back up, still smiling, eyes slightly wide, and Steve was breathless. Tony was gorgeous.

“You’re not even looking down at your feet and, yet, you’re dancing beautifully. Did Bucky lie when he said you never danced?

Steve shook his head: “No, he didn’t.”

“Then how? I highly doubt that the serum also heightened your ability to dance.”

“I just followed your lead, Tony. I can always follow you no matter what.” And that was a whole truth, Steve thought.

Tony’s brown eyes managed to widen further and Steve loved it, in secret. Clearing his throat, Tony averted his eyes and tried to muster an amusing smile.

“Careful there, Cap, you don’t want to inflate my ego, do you?”

Steve laughed and shook his head.

“Don’t worry, Tony. I’m not really worried about your ‘ego’.”, An ego Steve came to realize might not exist at all.

They stayed in silence, swaying to the jazz music. Tony didn’t dare to stare back at Steve any further. In fact, their bodies pressed closer together with Steve feeling Tony’s breathing on his neck and with no way to resist this at all, Steve found himself with his lips pressed against Tony’s temple, eyes closed.

Maybe they were like that for quite some time, but when Tony moved to finally look up at him, Steve immediately missed Tony’s proximity. It was too soon, too fleeting and whatever heaven Steve momentarily found was gone.

“Why haven’t you ever danced?”, Tony questioned, a frown settling on his face, “I can’t seem to find a reason.”

Maybe Steve was high from Tony’s touch because he didn’t second guess before explaining everything, spilling out the truth from in between the lines that only Bucky knew.

“Up until the serum there were no girls interested in dancing with me.”, Tony made an indignant face and Steve smiled, “And by then I quickly realized I’d only dance with the right person, the right partner. Then Peggy came along, but with the war, then Bucky’s death, then the ice… Our date, our chance at a dance… It was too late.”

Steve smiled at Tony with the less painful smile he could muster. With time the wounds that hurt numbed out as though Steve was still under all that ice; with Bucky’s return, it was like Steve finally made it out; and then Tony got under Steve’s skin, like Peggy once did, in a whole different way than Peggy, and Steve was finally back home. Steve wasn’t in suffering, but it still ached like a broken bone that healed and with the change of weather the pain came back fresh but just momentarily.

Tony still gazed at him and, once again, a deep frown settled on his face, but this time he was confused, almost like an error occurred in his system and then, right then, Steve stopped breathing.

Now it was obvious. Obvious. Steve’s feelings were out in the open and Tony was this close to grasping them.

“Then why did Bucky say you’d dance with me? Why are you dancing with me?”

The music stopped. Someone was talking in the background, probably Pepper up on the stage. Still Steve could hardly care when Tony looked so starved for answers. Steve didn’t have the courage to say it out loud, not yet, not in the middle of strangers. So he just gazed back at Tony, a lump in his throat, barely breathing and his heart on his sleeve.

“Tony… you must know, right?”

Looking briefly winded, Tony’s brown eyes ran frantically over Steve’s face, then all over their intertwined fingers. At that moment Steve let go of him, afraid of it being too much for Tony, afraid to feel Tony back away.

“Tony! Tony! Come up on stage.”, Pepper called out for him.

Everyone around both of them smiled, clapping. No one seemed to notice what had gone down between them, no one seemed to notice the way Tony hesitantly moved away from Steve, as if he was holding Tony back. Steve noticed, though. Steve noticed Tony, every inch of him and for a mere second a spasm went through his hand with the desire of holding Tony’s wrist, keep him in place to maybe tell him all about these feelings, to explain them, tell Tony this was real. However, Steve stood still. Tony looked up from Steve’s hand to Steve’s face. That was it. Then Tony was gone, this mask of charismatic smiles and small jokes that delighted the whole room.

Steve watched from afar, from the same exact place he danced with Tony. He stayed there after the speech was over, after Tony left the stage, after Tony was engulfed by a sea of people, eager to talk to him. Who wouldn’t be?

The gala didn’t stop there. More dance ensued, people kept on drinking and Tony didn’t return next to Steve. Steve couldn’t blame Tony so he grabbed a drink, from which he didn’t drink once and made his way to the floor to ceiling windows to watch New York light up like a Christmas tree.

Soon enough, it was all over and Steve didn’t notice it until a small hand crept up on his shoulder and he stared at Nat’s face. After hours of being stuck in a room full of people her makeup still looked flawless. She didn’t look one bit tired and Steve almost saluted it to her. Her hand fell down from his shoulder and her arm intertwined with his. Steve got back to his hobby of watching the city.

“I saw you standing here for the past hour or so, with just a drink in your hand, from which you didn’t drink, looking out the window like a lonely and sad boy. What happened? I thought you’d get back to dancing with Tony.”

Steve could hear the small smile in Nat’s voice. He just shook his head.

“Yeah… I don’t know. He didn’t get back.”

“And you didn’t go and grabbed him back?”

“Of course not. He was talking with all those people… Besides, I’m not sure he would have wanted to come.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I… He knows, Nat.”

“Ah…”, Steve looked at Natasha to see her also staring out the window. Then her green eyes focused on his blue ones. “Is that a bad thing?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t return, so I am assuming it is. God, Nat…” He let his chin fall to his chest, eyes closed tight. The pain of a silent rejection was slowly shooting through his veins to his heart, something he tried to avoid ever since Tony left his side. Steve had hoped.

“Hey, Steve, look at me”, Natasha was now in front of Steve, holding both his biceps, staring at him with a kind smile “Don’t let that get you down. Talk to him, okay? You’re great friends. The best of friends. You have that forever, no matter what you might think. I know it’s not the same, but…”

“It’s more than enough, Nat. It’s perfect. I’m just afraid that even that is lost.”

“Never. Tony would never allow that. Tony Stark might be a mystery most of the time, but one thing is clear: he adores you. Okay?”

Steve hesitated at the thought of Tony adoring him. He thought he could see that in the moments they spent together. When he talked about him with Bucky, when he smiled at Steve proud at himself for making Steve smile, even when they danced so close, like that sort of intimacy was as natural as breathing air. Tears started to sting Steve’s eyes and he quickly shook his head with a ghost of a smile.

“Okay.”

Natasha smiled, stood on her tiptoes and kissed Steve’s cheek before going away.

Steve was finally alone. Everyone had left, the team, Pepper, even the waiters and the bartender. Silence settled around him and it wasn’t completely dark because of the bright lights outside that shined inside. Steve didn’t feel like going home right away. If he could stay like that just for a little while longer Steve would. Then, perhaps, he’d walk home, slow enough to only arrive in time for his run.

For once Steve was being a coward and not facing his issues straight on. But for once Steve wasn’t too worried about it.

Suddenly there were light steps coming in his direction. Steve knew those steps too well because they belonged to Tony. Steve dared to look.

Tony was already close, inches away from him, determination written all over his face, holding Steve’s wrist.

Steve looked into Tony’s brown eyes, words slipping past his lips: “I’m sor-“

Tony’s other hand gripped Steve’s shoulder and the rest of letters trying to form words were lost inside Steve. He waited, instead, in slow motion, heart beating fast.

On his tiptoes, Tony didn’t hesitate and his lips were on Steve’s. Soft. Sweet. Desperate. Finally. Finally. Finally.

Steve rushed to hold Tony, just as desperate as their kiss. Steve grabbed Tony’s tuxedo in fists, pulling him hard against his entire body, as if he had waited for that moment his whole life. He had.

“Finally.”, Tony moaned and Steve simply pushed him hard against the window, overlooking the Hudson and New York City.


End file.
